Melissa Block
As special correspondent and guest host of NPR's news programs, Melissa Block brings her signature combination of warmth and incisive reporting. Her work over the decades has earned her journalism's highest honors, and has made her one of NPR's most familiar and beloved voices.
As co-host of All Things Considered from 2003 to 2015, Block's reporting took her everywhere from the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the heart of Rio de Janeiro; from rural Mozambique to the farthest reaches of Alaska.
Her riveting reporting from Sichuan, China, during and after the massive earthquake in 2008 brought the tragedy home to millions of listeners around the world. At the moment the earthquake hit, Block had the presence of mind to record a gripping, real-time narration of the seismic upheaval she was witnessing. Her long-form story about a desperate couple searching in the rubble for their toddler son was singled out by judges who awarded NPR's earthquake coverage the top honors in broadcast journalism: the George Foster Peabody Award, duPont-Columbia Award, Edward R. Murrow Award, National Headliner Award, and the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi Award.
Now, as special correspondent, Block continues to engage both the heart and the mind with her reporting on issues from gun violence to adult illiteracy to opioid addiction.
In 2017, she traveled the country for the series "Our Land," visiting a wide range of communities to explore how our identity is shaped by where we live. For that series, she paddled along the Mississippi River, went in search of salmon off the Alaska coast, and accompanied an immigrant family as they became U.S. citizens. Her story about the legacy of the Chinese community in the Mississippi Delta earned her a James Beard Award in 2018.
Block is the recipient of the 2019 Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism, awarded by the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University, as well as the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fulbright Association.
Block began her career at NPR in 1985 as an editorial assistant for All Things Considered, and rose through the ranks to become the program's senior producer.
She was a reporter and correspondent in New York from 1994 to 2002, a period punctuated by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Her reporting after those attacks helped earn NPR a George Foster Peabody Award. Block's reporting on rape as a weapon of war in Kosovo was cited by the Overseas Press Club of America in awarding NPR the Lowell Thomas Award in 1999.
Block is a 1983 graduate of Harvard University and spent the following year on a Fulbright fellowship in Geneva, Switzerland. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband — writer Stefan Fatsis — and their daughter.
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Trading in shares of the social-networking site Twitter began Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange. It's been the best year for initial public offerings since 2007. And the Twitter IPO was the most eagerly awaited of the year.
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The Smithsonian's National Zoo has put forward five names for the new panda cub. The zoo is asking the public to vote on the names, which are: Bao Bao, Ling Hua, Long Yun, Mulan, and Zhen Bao.
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JPMorgan Chase agreed pay $5.1 billion to settle litigation over mortgage assets sold during the housing bubble. The deal, announced late Friday afternoon, is to resolve claims the company misled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the housing market crashed. It is part of a tentative $13 billion deal the company is trying to reach with federal and state agencies over its mortgage liabilities.
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On Thursday, President Obama met with Senate Democrats. Then he met with House Republicans. And White House staff members continued talks with their counterparts from the House GOP leadership. All that talking just a day after there was radio silence between the two parties. One strong possibility for the change in attitudes is a new NBC/ Wall Street Journal poll that shows that the majority of Americans blame Republicans for the ongoing government shutdown and just 20 percent of people approve of the Republican party.
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The White House announced Tuesday that President Obama will nominate Federal Reserve Vice Chairwoman Janet Yellen to chair the Federal Reserve Wednesday. She would replace Ben Bernanke, who's stepping down from the post. Yellen has been the presumptive nominee for weeks, after Lawrence Summers announced his intention to remove himself from the running in September. She'd be the first woman to head the Fed.
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The second phase of the BP oil spill trial is under way in New Orleans. Last week, the court heard arguments about how BP responded to the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010. The judge will now hear testimony about how much oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. BP and the federal government have differing numbers and at stake are billions of dollars in potential fines under the Clean Water Act.
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With a 44-second victory, Oracle Team USA faced down Emirates Team New Zealand at the finals Wednesday to hold onto the America's Cup. Wednesday's race capped off an America's Cup competition that included capsizing and shattered masts, and an Oracle Team USA that seemed sure to lose.
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In a symbolic vote, British lawmakers advised against a military strike in Syria.
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Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron called a special gathering of Parliament to argue forcefully for military intervention in Syria in response to the apparent chemical strike that he said killed hundreds there. He met with opposition among legislators who don't want to rush to war. After a vigorous debate, they voted against the government.
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San Diego Mayor Bob Filner resigned on Friday. The city council struck a deal under which Filner — a Democrat — will step down on Aug. 30. It's the end result of a sexual harassment scandal that has seen more than a dozen women accuse Filner of inappropriate behavior.